Zapomenuté povstání?
A forgotten uprising?

Recollections of June 17, 1953, in Germany (since 1953 until now)

Summary/Abstract: The article is based on the author’s presentation delivered at “The Prague Spring 50 Years After: Great Crises of Communist Régimes in Central Europe in a Transnational Perspective” conference, which took place in Prague on June 13 to June 15, 2018, and was organized by the Institute for Contemporary History of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic together with the Office of the Government of the Czech Republic. The author describes changes of the historical memory in Germany of the uprising of June 17, 1953, which broke out in the eastern part of the country. He first outlines the historical context and course of events of the uprising, which spread from East Berlin to many other places in the German Democratic Republic and was suppressed only by an intervention of units of the Soviet Army, and then explains its role in both German states. As to the German Democratic Republic, the violent suppression of the uprising deeply shook the credibility of the Communist regime among the population for a long time. It was officially presented as a Fascist coup or counterrevolution engineered by agents of the West, and remained a taboo until the demise of the GDR. The lesson which the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands – SED) drew from it was that any opposition had to be nipped at the bud, using the ubiquitous and rampant State Security (Staatssicherheit) for this purpose. As to the Federal Republic of Germany, the suppressed uprising contributed to a legitimization and consolidation of the democratic regime and ties to the West, and the date of June 17 was soon declared a national holiday. Since 1960, it was rather the Berlin Wall which symbolized the desire for the reunification of the country and freedom, and the significance of the uprising thus decreased. Since the early 1970s, the new “Eastern policy” of Chancellor Willy Brandt, which was seeking a reconciliation rather than a confrontation with East Germany, also contributed to its retreat into the background. In the 1990s, the national holiday of June 17 was replaced by October 3, to be celebrated as the Reunification Day. The popular uprising of 1953 is reminded by some memorial places, and it has also become a frequent topic in German historiography; however, it has largely faded away from people’s minds in today’s Germany.

• Details
• Contents